“Romania was more vulnerable than any other communist country to the myth of the west as material paradise, to mall culture and measurement of success by what kind of mobile phone you have. It’s particularly strong here, perhaps because it all happened so suddenly, even to the educated classes. A lot of damage has been done, both to Romania and to the west, as we now see in this crisis: because the west began to believe some of our illusions about itself – in our false expectations of what it seemed to promise, back then in 1989. Which feels at once like another lifetime, but yesterday.” –Cordruta Cruceanu, former curator at The National Gallery of Art, Bucharest.